


break the link

by Love_Me_Dead



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, F/M, Pre-Canon, brightwell if you squint, i am choosing to squint, it's more about malcolm changing his name, this really isnt about the relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:14:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23089189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Love_Me_Dead/pseuds/Love_Me_Dead
Summary: At Harvard, Malcolm can disappear. No one has to know about his family, unless he tells them, and he chooses not to. It's great, comfortable, until all of that comes crashing down.
Relationships: Malcolm Bright/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 46





	break the link

**Author's Note:**

> uh damn i haven't posted anything since like.... 2018??? Big Yikes. but for real this show has inspired me like no other to the point where i even edited this before i posted it?? Wow Who Are They. 
> 
> thank you for opening this and i hope you enjoy!!!

It was so easy to disappear at university. Among the throng of bright-eyed freshman and seniors dragging themselves through another day, he disappeared as just another student surviving on coffee and little else. Malcolm was just another student, just someone else trudging through the snow and freezing temperatures to get to class.

He was so goddamn glad to be out of New York, out of the streets where everyone seemed to know his name and his story. In Boston, he could choose who to tell, and currently, the number of his classmates privy to that information was sitting neatly at zero. He preferred it that way. Gone were the days of schoolyard taunting and people avoiding him in the hallways. He could be mononymous. 

Though most students were like him, the children of American aristocracy, and they all identified themselves with their surnames, Malcolm never offered his upon introduction. It would tie him right back to New York, right back to his father, and he wanted to get as far from that as possible. Most people, he assumed, figured that he was a scholarship kid rather than a trust fund kid, and he was fine with that. 

Mother called nearly every night, as if his monthly weekend visits home weren’t enough, and she asked how he was sleeping, if he was eating, whether he had made any friends. He knew she was terrified. Her son leaving for college would be hard at the best of times, but when he was leaving with a laundry list of mental illnesses and trauma, it was different. 

He had a single room, mostly thanks to Mother, but it had more to do with his parasomnia than it did with her campaign. He couldn’t imagine anything worse than having someone witness his night terrors, or even see the headboard restraints and the  _ debacle _ that was bedtime. That, coupled with his own pharmacy of prescription medications, meant that he was blessedly alone.

Which isn’t to say he didn’t have friends. Malcolm did not consider them true friends, just schoolyard friends with whom he could gripe about papers and complain about the weather. All the same, they smiled at him and they knew his name. He wasn’t sure if he could ever make friends to his Mother’s standard, or with the same ease that Ainsley did.

He could recall being young and Ainsley and her friends chasing around the house, giggling in her bedroom, having sleepovers. He could recall doing the same things with his friends when he was young but it had come to an end when he was ten years old. His house was haunted, the kids at school were mean, and suddenly his father was gone and he had therapy once a week.

It was so easy to disappear at university the way he had always wanted to disappear. The girl who sat next to him in abnormal psychology with the curls knew him only as Malcolm. The person who served him coffee in the mornings did not know his name at all - he just called Malcolm “light roast guy”. The RA knew him by his room number.

He took his spot next to the curly-haired girl in abnormal psych. He spent a lot of his time studying her - the line of her jaw and the slope of her nose and the gentle pout of her lips. He tried to map out her curl pattern once, during a particularly boring lecture. 

They were discussing nature versus nurture. A boy sat behind him argued in favour of nature, claiming that there must be a genetic component that caused people to snap, to kill another person. 

Malcolm raised his hand and Dr. Corbyn pointed to him. “There’s generally a specific event that causes someone to kill another person, to use David’s example, and there’s a hundred other social factors that go into creating a killer.”

“So, you’re firmly on the  _ nurture _ side, Mr. Whitly?” Dr. Corbyn said, stepping closer to him.

A few people tittered. Whispered conversations erupted around him. The curly-haired girl next to him glanced at him.

Malcolm gripped his pen tighter, attempting to stave off the tremor. His face was hot and he could feel his ears burning as Dr. Corbyn continued on with the lecture. He couldn’t hear the lecture over the sound of his heartbeat in his ears and he tried to remind himself to breathe.

That name, his surname, immediately exposed him. Part of him considered fleeing the class mid-lecture, but that would bring more attention to him, and someone would undoubtedly start a rumour and then the story would get warped as it passed along the grapevine. Instead, he kept himself seated, his hand shaking no matter how much he tried to make it stop, and he took notes mechanically.

As soon as Dr. Corbyn dismissed them, Malcolm haphazardly shoved his things into his bag and fled the classroom. The last thing he needed was someone coming up to him and asking him about his father.

He hardly made it out of the building before someone caught up with him and matched his pace. The curly-haired girl who sat next to him in the lecture. His stomach turned.

“Hey!” She said cheerfully.

Malcolm glanced at her. He could not recall her name but he knew, unsettlingly, that she knew his name. “Hi,” he said, plastering on a tight smile and praying that she would take the hint and leave him alone.

“Where are you headed?” She asked.

“I’m just going home,” he said.

“Oh, I think we live in the same building,” she said.

Malcolm looked at her again and could not recall seeing her in the hallways. He would have marked her presence in his building if he had seen her there, and he figured that she was trying to make conversation.

“Huh,” Malcolm said. “I’m sorry - what’s your name?” 

“Nicole,” she said, smiling. Her smile lit up her face. “I hate to ask, but…”

Malcolm gritted his teeth and stuffed his hands in his coat pockets, clenching them tight. 

“Whitly? Like, Martin Whitly?”

He could lie and say he had never heard of the man (though, studying criminology and psychology, that might be a hard sell). He could tell her the truth. 

“The very same,” he mumbled, glaring off into the distance. He’d harboured a stupid crush on her for the entire month of January and now, he would ruin it by admitting he was related to the Surgeon.

“Is he your uncle?” She asked. Malcolm couldn’t bring himself to look at her, but he imagined the corners of her mouth frothing in anticipation.

She offered him a way out of this conversation, and he nearly took it. He could be nothing more than a nephew, an innocent casualty, and not the one who called the police on his own father. 

After a pause, he said, “no, he’s my father.”

“Oh,” Nicole squeaked. Malcolm imagined the froth around her mouth dissipating. 

And now things were awkward. They continued walking in step, the weight of the conversation hanging between them. He kept thinking of how he had wanted to talk to her after class every single day, but he was still working up the nerve.

“How old were you? When - when he was…”

“Arrested?” Malcolm asked. He could finally glance over at her again. “I was ten.”

“I’m sorry,” Nicole said. And she sounded sorry, too, though Malcolm didn’t know if it was because he had lost his father or because she had brought it up in casual conversation.

Malcolm took a breath. “It was a long time ago.”

Nicole stopped outside the biology building and faced him. He thought about going to the library, using his linguistics midterm as an excuse to flee.

“I lost my dad when I was ten, too,” Nicole said. She straightened up, looked him in the eye.

“I’m sorry,” Malcolm said. It would be stupid to mention that he had hardly  _ lost _ his father when he saw Martin Whitly monthly.

“It was a long time ago,” Nicole echoed, a wobbly smile on her face. “I have to get to class, but we should get coffee sometime.”

Malcolm nodded. “Sure,” he said as casually as he could muster. 

She smiled, said goodbye, and then disappeared into the biology building. Malcolm let his breath out. 

He returned to his dorm room, a cramped space that was always too cold and that he sometimes worried was closing in on him. His room at home was so spacious - the whole house was full of empty space - that his dorm felt like a closet. Mother would never approve of it. She would kick up a fuss at the room they housed her son in, but he didn’t mind. The small space meant that there were no secrets, no surprises, no blind spots while he was strapped into bed.

Malcolm dropped his backpack and crumpled onto the edge of his bed, his hands shaking as he stopped trying to control the tremor. He kept thinking about class, about the voices that giggled and the whispers. In retrospect, the laughter was amplified and the whispered conversations carried a bitter tone; the taunts from elementary school swirled in.

He took a deep breath and laid back on his bed, one of the headboard restraints shoved against his hip. Nicole crossed his mind - he now had a name to go with her face and her curls. He looked over her actions, her words, and tried to find a hint of disgust. He would project it, if he looked hard enough, but on his first recollection, he could find only genuine curiosity and her bright smile.

Malcolm dug the restraint out from under his hip and tossed it aside. They were repurposed BDSM restraints, padded and comfortable and strong enough to keep him from hurting himself in the throes of a nightmare. They were also incredibly embarrassing. Any time he had company, he tucked them out of the way, down the wall behind his bed to hide them. Only one girl had noticed them during a one-night stand and insisted he tie her up. 

All he could think about, when she was laying beneath him with her arms pulled aside, was his father’s victims, and the girl in the box. It killed the mood for him, but she didn’t seem to care, and they never saw each other again. 

There was perhaps nothing less arousing than thinking of his father’s victims.

In the morning, Malcolm left his dorm early to get coffee. He didn’t have class for another hour, but the cafe ran out of the good muffins before ten and it wasn’t like he had slept much, anyway. He tossed and turned all night, the events of Dr. Corbyn’s class replaying through his head all night.

His usual cashier, the one who knew him only as “light roast guy” had his order rung up by the time he reached the front of the line. Malcolm ordered a blueberry muffin as well. He took the full cup of coffee and the small paper bag to the sugar and milk station, fitting his coffee cup with a lid. 

“Malcolm!”

He looked over. To his right hand side sat Nicole, a notebook spread out in front of her. She waved him over and he had no reason to refuse. Despite yesterday’s events, he still thought she was beautiful and he still wanted to get close to her. 

He took the empty seat across from her and she pulled her books closer to her to give him space for his coffee and muffin.

“I never would have pegged you as a light roast guy,” Nicole said, smiling.

Malcolm glanced at his coffee cup. Their housekeeper, Katya, had told him years ago that lighter roasted coffees had more caffeine. And since he hardly slept, he jumped at the chance to intake more caffeine. He wished he had a witty retort to her comment, but he couldn’t find anything.

“What are you working on?” He asked.

Nicole sighed. “That essay for Corbyn,” she said. 

At the mention of Dr. Corbyn, his heart kicked up a notch, and his hands clenched in his lap. “Oh, right,” he said as casually as he could muster.

“Have you started working on yours yet?” Nicole asked.

“I’ve thought about it, which I count as work,” Malcolm said.

Nicole’s eyes widened. “It’s due next week!” She said, half-panicked. “I’ve already got my first draft done.”

“How many drafts are you supposed to do?” Malcolm asked.

“I always do three,” Nicole said, cavalier. “I’ve got some free time if you need any help brainstorming ideas for your essay.”

Malcolm checked his watch. He still had forty-five minutes until class. “I don’t have long, but sure,” he said.

She smiled, wide and genuine, and she leaned over her notebook. They started discussing theories and papers they’d studied in class, but slowly their conversation became personal. Nicole studied linguistics and she had an older sister, Sophie, and back home in Indiana, she had a Great Dane named Gus.

He excused himself to class once his muffin had been eaten and his coffee drained and he thought that perhaps he had been without companionship for too long. Middle school had been a nightmare of people who were old enough to pay attention to the news teasing him about his father and high school wasn’t much of an improvement. He had managed to make two friends, people with whom he could eat lunch, but they went off to Stanford and Edinburgh after graduation. They had promised to send emails, keep in touch, but their friendships were effectively cut off by distance and Malcolm had all but forgotten what they looked like.

Nicole, though, she was a chance at friendship. 

Malcolm sat across from Gabrielle, his legs crossed under him and one of the teddy bears tucked under his arm. It was vaguely sticky. He still went to her, a child therapist, even though everyone said they would slowly transition him over to a psychiatrist more fit to his age group once he turned eighteen. Three years on, he hadn’t found one with the same warmth as Gabrielle - they were all too frigid, too clinical, and he kept running back to Gabrielle’s warmth.

He told Gabrielle everything about Nicole, about the scene in class when Dr. Corbyn addressed him by his surname. She didn’t say anything when he pulled the teddy bear into his lap and clutched onto it.

“What have all your failed friendships had in common?”

Malcolm shrugged and ran down the list of people he had once considered friends. There was a tendency towards male friends, though there had been a few girls as well. They were mostly white and mostly upper-class, but that had more to do with the elite private school he’d attended. He considered their personalities.

“They were nice?” Malcolm mumbled.

“That’s subjective,” Gabrielle said. “I was thinking of something objective.”

Malcolm frowned. He shook his head. There was nothing that connected them, unless she was considering aristocracy and money as the defining factor, but that didn’t seem likely.

“You, Malcolm,” Gabrielle said. “You’re the common denominator in all your relationships.”

He stared down at the teddy bear on his lap, sifted his fingers through the fur. “And I’m the reason those friendships ended?”

“Yes, but not because you’re a bad friend,” she assured. “I think you have trouble trusting people. Wondering what their intentions are. Worrying that they’ll abandon you.”

Malcolm squeezed the teddy bear.

“You find it hard to let other people in,” she said. “To trust them. People can recognize that, but they don’t realize that you’re trying to keep yourself safe. People may misread you as standoffish or untrusting.”

“You think… I should try to have a friendship with Nicole,” Malcolm mumbled.

Gabrielle smiled. “I think you should give it a try.”

On his way out, Malcolm grabbed a handful of suckers. Even though he was a far cry from the ten year old he once was, candy meant safety. And his father, a doctor, had rarely allowed him to have candy when he was little.

Martin Whitly noted the sucker immediately. He asked pleasantly about how therapy was going and Malcolm only wished that he had pockets to stuff his hands into, but Mother had his pants tailored with the pockets sewn shut. She said it gave him bad posture, made him look low-class. Instead, his hands were left beside his thighs, clenching and unclenching.

Things would never be normal between them. The visits began when he was ten. He did not speak for six months after Dr. Whitly was sentenced. No matter what Gabrielle tried to talk to him about - literature, TV, video games - he remained silent. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to talk, it was that he felt like he had forgotten  _ how _ . The sudden mutism compounded with a reckless attempt at self-harm made Mother reconsider her ban on the children ever visiting their father.

The room where they met was bare, except for a water fountain near the wall with a bent, sharp protrusion, and identical tables that nearly resembled picnic tables. Except that these tables were bolted to the floor, and they all had an inset hook to which patients were handcuffed during visits. 

As the hour came to a close, Martin pounced with a seemingly innocuous question. “Met anyone nice at Harvard?”

Malcolm dropped the notebook he was trying to slide neatly into his bag. “No,” he said, too quick, too fast, as he scooped up his notebook.

Martin wore a grin of satisfaction. “Come on,” he appealed. “I - I feel like I hardly know anything about you. And I am  _ so _ proud of you for getting into Harvard - one of the choosiest schools in the world!”

Malcolm zipped his bag closed and stared at the table between them. Martin’s hands were handcuffed to a hook on the table, which was bolted into the floor. Constant reminders of the dangers that his father posed. 

“A girl recognized me because of your name,” Malcolm admitted.

“Well, what can I say?” Martin chuckled, beaming. “I’m famous.”

Malcolm picked up his bag, began to swing his legs over the metal bench. 

“You know, even before the whole arrest debacle, just marrying your mother…”

“It was more about the murder than being a socialite,” Malcolm said.

Martin’s smile wavered, but didn’t drop. “So, are you two… you know…”

He stood and swung his backpack over his shoulder. “No,” he said. Even if they were dating, he did not want to talk to his father about his sex life. As it was, most things he told Dr. Whitly about his personal life came back to bite him.

“Every man has his needs, Malcolm.”

His ears burnt. “It was nice to see you, Dr. Whitly,” he said shortly.

He tossed out the stick from his sucker on his way out. 

Malcolm spent a stuffy evening under his mother’s eye. She called a dinner and prepared the dining room for them. It was her only chance, she claimed, to have a meal together as a family before he flew back to Massachusetts tomorrow afternoon. She had the cook make a prime rib roast with an herb sauce so she could watch Malcolm push it around his plate. Ainsley, who had just had her braces tightened, scowled at her meal. Mother drank more than she ate.

After dinner, he escaped upstairs to his bedroom. He hadn’t brought much with him for a two night trip, but he had Dr. Corbyn’s paper hanging over his head and some readings to complete for his criminology class. Ainsley crept in behind him and sat on his bed, massaging her jaw.

“How did you deal with it?” She asked, lisping around the hardware in her mouth.

Malcolm ran his tongue over his perfectly straight teeth. “Mom has her own pharmacy of painkillers and sleeping pills,” he said. “If you cry enough, she’ll give you morphine.”

Ainsley snorted and pulled her feet up onto the bed. “She never told me about that.”

“I bet she wishes she hadn’t told me,” Malcolm mumbled, fishing his criminology book out of his backpack. Mother was often too drunk to keep a steady inventory of her pills, though she did keep them under lock and key.

Ainsley narrowed her eyes. “What did you do?”

Malcolm sat at his desk, opened his criminology book to the seventh chapter. He did not think about Mother feeding him prescription sleeping pills when he was sixteen in an attempt to keep him from hurting himself in his sleep. He did not think of breaking into her safe, scooping out a handful of pills, and swallowing them all.

“Oh,” Ainsley said quietly, her gaze shifting to his duvet. 

They were both remembering the hospital. Malcolm remembered the starched blankets and the ostentatious bouquet that his mother brought and the way Ainsley sat curled up in the chair next to him. The tears. The week spent in the hospital during the peak of his summer and then the months spent in intensive outpatient therapy.

“What if Mom doesn’t trust me with her private stash?” Ainsley asked.

“I have a key under the book in my desk drawer,” Malcolm said. “But don’t do anything stupid.”

“Did Mom give you that key?” 

“I had it cut,” he said. After his debacle, Mother had changed the locks on her cabinet but she had not considered Malcolm’s dependence on her sedatives.

Ainsley grinned. “Of course you did.”

Malcolm tried very hard not to hear his father’s voice when he walked into Dr. Corbyn’s class on Monday and saw Nicole sitting in her usual spot..  _ Every man has his needs.  _ He knew that almost everyone was disgusted by the thought of their parents having sex, but somehow, it felt worse for him. Somehow it was extra awful considering that his father was a monster.

Instead, he threw himself into schoolwork. This time, he had Nicole. They met in the library to study, though it mostly involved the two of them sitting across from each other at a table with their books spread out in front of them chatting. 

Malcolm burned through two essays and he completed all his readings at the sacrifice of a regular sleep schedule, but then again, his insomnia worked to his advantage sometimes. At the very least, he had coffee to see him through. 

The library was all old wood and rich red carpets. Malcolm had felt intimidated the first time he walked into the library, dwarfed by its luxury and age, despite his own home being built in the same style. It was snowing against the window beside them, studying for Dr. Corbyn’s midterm and testing each other on theories before the answers could mock them from the test paper. Some students were taking sleds down the hill just below them, throwing snowballs and shrieking with laughter.

Their books spread in front of them, Nicole was sipping tea and Malcolm had black coffee. The kiosk in the library had the option between decaf or regular coffee, no distinction between roasts. She turned the page, but Malcolm noted that her eyes didn’t scan over the page. 

“Hey, this is a weird question,” she said.

Malcolm sipped his coffee. “Most things usually aren’t,” he assured.

Nicole smiled and brushed her hair behind her ear. 

If he was being honest with himself, Malcolm was still smitten with her. The way she studied, how her eyebrows knit together when she was confused, and the way she licked her lips when she was working things out. But he knew who he was.

“Well, my sister is throwing this party on Friday,” she said. “And she’s making me come because she says I’m a hermit and I am absolutely dreading it.”

Malcolm couldn’t help but laugh. “So you want me to come with you?” He asked, considering. “I’m not much of a partier.”

He had attempted a few times in high school, when regular teenage angst compounded with his myriad of mental illnesses, but those attempts had ended with him vomiting into Gil’s guest bathroom toilet. He wasn’t meant to mix alcohol with his meds - at least not in the quantities that he’d attempted.

“Or,” Nicole said, shuffling the books around, “you could provide me a reasonable alibi.”

Her cheeks flushed and she glanced up at him through her lashes. 

Malcolm grinned. “What would that be?” His heart was pounding. An acute stress response. He was anxious - no, he was  _ nervous _ .

She reached up and untucked her hair, twisting one of her curls around her finger. She licked her lips. “Dinner reservations?”

Malcolm raised his eyebrows. “A date?” He clenched his fist on top of his notebook.

Nicole noted his hand and her coquettish smile disappeared. “I mean - it’s fine if you don’t want to. I was just - I was workshopping different ideas and…”

“Dinner reservations,” Malcolm echoed. “Where were you thinking?”

“Well, there’s this new seafood place in downtown Boston,” she offered, “but honestly, McDonald’s would be fine - as long as you keep me away from the engineering guy from MIT that my sister is trying to set me up with.”

Malcolm laughed. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I won’t let him bore you with quantum mechanics.”

“My saviour,” she laughed.

“So, it’s a date?” He asked. “Seafood place in downtown Boston?”

“Perfect,” she said, her face alight.

Malcolm left the study session afloat. But as soon as he stepped into the snow, out of the warmth of the library, his breath caught.

He had never been on a real date before, only the teenage excuses for dates that involved going to the movies or getting coffee or going back to each other’s houses and making out before their parents got home. He had never been on a fancy date to a fancy restaurant, though he figured that his family home could often be counted as a fancy restaurant. And he really, really did not want to fuck it up with Nicole.

He could hardly pay attention in Dr. Corbyn’s class, thinking only of the girl next to him and their plans for Friday evening. Nicole said that her sister was willing to lend her the car if she promised not to crash it and that it was a fifteen minute drive to the restaurant. Malcolm had made reservations for them and he did not dwell on the fact that the host paused when repeating his name back to him.

He tried not to think about it, especially when he struggled through class on Friday. He had hardly slept the night before and he nearly fell asleep in his statistics class while they discussed distribution. When he returned to his dorm, he had a text from Nicole.

_ So ready for tonight!!! See you downstairs at 5:30! _

Malcolm’s hand shook as he changed out of his hoodie and into a button-up shirt. He fumbled with the buttons and had to redo it once as he had paired the wrong button and hole. And then he had to tie a tie, which he nearly always screwed up. His four-in-hand was acceptable, but always crooked, and he hadn’t yet mastered the half-Windsor. He wished he had Gil, who always managed to fix his askew tie and never once said anything about it.

He was in the lobby five minutes early, standing beside a spider plant and an untouched couch, with his hands fidgeting together. Students were filing out of the house, heading out to some kind of debauchery and all glancing over at Malcolm, dressed up and waiting.

Was he overdressed? He couldn’t tell, and he had no idea if the restaurant they were going to was formal or casual. Gil had once teased him over his attire and asked if he even owned a pair of jeans.

He began to worry over the state of his blazer. He’d lost some weight since he’d gotten it and it hung awkwardly on him. Mother would demand it be tailored. His fingers found the hem, where it was just a touch too long, and he fretted over it when the elevator dinged and Nicole stepped out.

Her hair was straight and silky, a departure from her usual bouncy curls, and she wore a dress that cut just above her knees. Black and flouncy, it was half-hidden underneath her blue peacoat. Malcolm could not believe that out of all the men at Harvard, all their chiseled jaws and strong bodies, she chose him to go out with on a Friday night.

“You look gorgeous,” he said.

Nicole beamed, teetering in her high heels and tucking her hair behind her ear. “Thank you,” she said. “You look nice, too.”

“What, this old thing?” He teased.

She laughed and started for the door, wrapping her arm into the crux of his elbow to steady herself. She was the same height as him in her shoes and he could smell her hair - coconut and hairspray - as they walked to the parking garage.

Nicole’s sister drove a red camry. Despite Nicole driving, Malcolm still opened the driver’s side door for her. Mother’s lessons of etiquette had stuck. When the engine turned over, the radio blared Britney Spears and Nicole immediately turned it off.

“You don’t strike me as a Britney fan,” she said.

“I can appreciate some of her music,” he admitted. “There was a period last summer where I had “Toxic” stuck in my head for a whole month.”

Nicole laughed and Malcolm felt his skin flush - he hadn’t told anyone how much he had loved that song. It was Ainsley’s fault anyway; she had played the song non-stop and sung it in the shower and maybe he liked it so much because it meant his sister was happy.

It took them fifteen minutes of discussing Britney Spears to reach the restaurant. It was nestled by the water with warm streetlights and a large patio overlooking the Atlantic. This close to the water, the wind howled and Nicole shivered further into her coat as they walked from the car to the restaurant. No one sat on the patio.

The host gave Malcolm a glance when he gave his name for the reservation and he did his best to ignore it, to focus on Nicole, who seemed to be untangling herself from her coat as she warmed up. They arrived at their table and Nicole finally shed her coat, revealing her bare arms.

“Thank you for rescuing me from my sister,” she said, resting her chin on her hands. “I hate those parties.”

“They don’t sound like fun,” Malcolm said, tracing the pattern on the silverware. “Warm beer and sweaty frat boys? Not my idea of a good time.”

Nicole smiled and sipped from the glass of ice water set in front of her. She left behind a trace of her lipstick, faintly pink. “What is your idea of a good time?”

“A good book, I guess?” He shrugged. He had spent so much of his adolescence escaping despondency that he had never focused on what felt good; it was a foreign concept.

“What’s your favourite book?” She asked.

Malcolm took a sip of his water, rubbing away the condensation stuck to his hand on the sleek napkin in his lap. “ _ The Count of Monte Cristo _ ,” he said before he could edit his thoughts. He clenched his jaw - memories of reading it with his father crept in. “What’s yours?”

“I’m not really into  _ literature _ ,” she said, enunciating every syllable in the word. “I like Harry Potter.”

Malcolm nodded. “They’re good books,” he said. Ainsley dragged him to see every movie and he found her crying in her room when the fifth book came out. 

“They’re kids books,” Nicole said, peering down at the menu.

“I would hardly call the overthrowing of a facist regime a  _ kids _ book,” Malcolm said.

She laughed as their waiter came by, introduced himself as Nicholas, and asked if they’d like to start with drinks. Malcolm, brave, ordered a bottle of chardonnay for the two of them, and smiled when he was not asked for ID. 

“You’re twenty-one?” Nicole asked, leaning over the table once Nicholas had disappeared.

“I will be in July,” he said.

“Well, if I drink too much then you’ll have to drive us home,” she said. “Sophie would kill me if I got her car impounded.”

“I don’t have a driver’s license,” he said, chuckling.

Nicole’s eyes widened. “What? You didn’t get your learner’s on your sixteenth birthday like everyone else?”

Malcolm thought of his sixteenth birthday, spent mostly pushing food around his plate and culminating in him vomiting. That summer had been a particularly anxious one. Driving was the last thing on his mind.

“You might know about my father, but my mother comes from old money,” he said, grinning. “She would never let her kids do something as menial as driving.”

Nicole smiled. “So you’re telling me you’re rich?”

“Unfortunately,” he admitted.

Nicholas brought their wine and poured them each a glass. After taking their orders - scallops and rockfish - he disappeared again and they both sipped their glasses of wine. 

“Well, I’ll have to behave myself and not drink too much,” she said, “as your  _ chauffeur _ for the evening.”

“You’re much prettier than my chauffeur,” Malcolm said, laughing. “But, if you do drink, I could learn to drive. It would be a wonderful learning experience.”

Nicole laughed. “No way,” she said. “I told Sophie that I was out with a very safe boy, not a boy who would crash her car.”

Malcolm laughed and wondered if she had told her sister that her paramour was the son of the most notorious serial killer.

Once their plates were cleared and the wine was drained (Malcolm drank most of it), he paid the bill and they went back to the Camry. It was probably still a bad idea for Nicole to drive, in high heels and with alcohol in her system, but they made it back to the parking garage without incident. 

They held onto each other as they made their way to the elevator, Malcolm’s arm wrapped around her waist to steady her, though he was using her to keep himself steady just as much. His meds had the unfortunate side effect of making his alcohol tolerance nill, not that it had ever been very high to begin with. 

“Do you need me to walk you home?” Nicole teased after he stumbled over the gap in the floor between the elevator and the lobby.

“Just think of all the terrible things that could happen to me,” Malcolm said. He loosened his tie and unbuttoned the top of his dress shirt. 

She followed him off the elevator despite living a few floors up. He could only think of how his room invited a general sense of debauchery, being a single room. His thoughts shifted to his bed - a twin - and the restraints and he had never been so glad to have made his bed in the morning. He’d tucked them under his pillow, but she would still be able to see where they hooked onto his headboard if she looked closely enough.

“I’m only going to stay for a minute,” she said as Malcolm fumbled with his keys.

He would have said something about how she didn’t have to leave at all if he wasn’t as tipsy, if his mind was on something other than the headboard restraints.

“You have a single?” Nicole asked, stepping into the room once Malcolm had unlocked it. She sat on his bed and took off her high heels, let them fall against the hardwood floor.

“Like I said, my mother is loaded,” Malcolm said.

Nicole rubbed the spots on her feet where the heels had dug in. Malcolm sat next to her, slid off his blazer and hung it on his desk chair. Part of him wanted to invite her to stay the night.

“Thank you for tonight,” she said, smiling at him. Her lipstick had worn off through dinner, leaving behind a pink ring outlining her lips.

“I did, too,” he said. “Thanks for not dragging me to that frat party.”

She smiled, leaned in closer. “You’ll be dragged to one eventually.”

Malcolm, though drunk, was not stupid. He closed the distance between them, kissing her despite the awkward angle. She reciprocated, her hand resting on his shoulder. 

Nicole was the first to pull away, smiling. Malcolm was certain that there was a hint of pink lipstick on his face. “I should get home,” she said, but did not move.

Malcolm thought she must be waiting for an invitation to stay. After a beat, Nicole stood, collected her shoes, and hobbled across the room.

“Do you need me to walk you home?” Malcolm asked. 

She smiled. “I think I’ll be okay,” she said, opening the door. “Thank you again for tonight. Nice room, too.”

Malcolm glanced at the bare walls, the generic desk, the radiator that was so slow to heat he thought it must be broken. “Thanks,” he said dumbly.

“Goodnight, Malcolm.”

She shut the door behind her and his stomach flopped. 

Malcolm went home for reading week. He reported to Gabrielle that he had let Nicole in and that they were dating and he was learning to trust her. He told Ainsley, too, when she appeared in his bedroom again and asked who he was texting. He’d never had anyone but Mother and Ainsley to text before - it was nice to text Nicole the mundane details of his day.

“A friend from school,” he replied to Ainsley’s question.

She glared at him. “A friend? What’s her name?”

“I never said it was a girl,” Malcolm said.

“Awfully defensive, Malcolm,” Ainsley said, smiling.

He rolled his eyes, leaned back in his desk chair. “Fine, but you have to promise not to tell Mom.”

“My lips are sealed,” she smiled.

He told her about Nicole, about their date and about how she was beautiful, brilliant and funny. “And she likes Harry Potter.”

“She’s perfect,” Ainsley said.

He did not tell Mother because he knew she would make a big deal of it - any excuse to throw a soiree - and he did not need her buying Nicole a plane ticket to New York when they had only been dating for a week. 

When he returned to Harvard, the weather quickly warmed. Snow turned to slush and then to rain, but by the time April rolled around, people began to emerge from their winter coats. He threw himself into schoolwork and into his new relationship.

He let Nicole in. He did not scoop his menagerie of pharmaceuticals into the drawer when she came into his room. He did not flinch when she asked questions. He skirted around the nightmares, though, never letting himself fall asleep when she was pressed close to him in his twin bed. He promised himself that he would tell her eventually, he would let her in, but not right now, not after they’d just had sex.

The semester came to a crashing end. Malcolm and Nicole spent many long evenings in the library preparing for Dr. Corbyn’s final exam, which promised to be difficult. He had other exams to worry about, especially his statistics final, but at the very least, he had prepared himself as best he could for Dr. Corbyn’s exam.

Once exams were over, in the grace period between the end of exams and move-out day, Nicole’s sister threw a farewell party. She was graduating with a degree in math. Sophie had told Nicole in no uncertain terms that she was to be at that party and she was to bring her boyfriend. Malcolm liked being identified by Nicole, rather than by his father.

“I’m sorry that she’s dragged you into this,” Nicole said, swiping on lip gloss. “She just wants to meet you.”

They were in her room - Nicole’s roommate had already gone back home - and Malcolm sat on her bed, watching her get ready. Her room had much more personality than his, with a family picture on her nightstand and CDs stacked on her desk. She had a magazine cut-out poster of Taylor Swift taped to her wall and a sizeable box full of cosmetics.

“It’s fine,” Malcolm said. “I get it. My sister thinks you’re the coolest person to ever exist.”

“I’d love to meet her,” Nicole said, rubbing her lips together. 

She had extended Malcolm a tentative invitation to Indiana, to meet her family and attend a barbecue with them. Likewise, he had invited her to New York, though wasn’t sure how he felt about bringing her home to Mother.

“You’ll be okay?” Nicole asked, dropping her lip gloss into her box of cosmetics. “It’ll be loud and Sophie can be a bit overwhelming sometimes.”

Malcolm nodded. “Loud noises are no problem,” he said. “And, believe me, I can deal with overwhelming.”

She sat next to him and fussed with her shoes. Her hair fell in a curtain over her face as she leaned down to pull them on. He knew that she was worried about his PTSD diagnosis, but his was different than what she had heard on TV. 

“Let’s go then,” Nicole said, smiling and taking his hand.

They walked across campus together to the Greek houses, holding hands. He wasn’t sure which one it was, but he could hear music thumping from the sidewalk in front of it. He rethought his earlier statement about loud noises. Memories percolated up - high school parties to which he had been invited when someone found out he had access to prescription drugs and then being picked up for public intoxication. Blessedly, he was picked up by Gil.

They were greeted by a wall of music and bodies. Malcolm tensed but Nicole dragged him through the house to the kitchen, where they both picked up a can of Miller High Life. At the very least, it was cold. She brought him out to the backyard just off the kitchen, decorated with tiki torches that he was shocked to see were actually aflame. 

Malcolm was not used to beer - it was never served at home and this one had an aftertaste that was vaguely armpit-flavoured. Out on the patio, smokers congregated and used their mostly-empty cans as ashtrays.

“Nic!” 

Nicole embraced a doppelganger, a little shorter than she was, but otherwise identical down to the way their eyes crinkled when they smiled. “Soph, this is Malcolm,” she said.

Sophie held out a hand, her other hand carrying both her beer and a lit cigarette. “It’s so good to meet you!” She said.

He shook her hand. “Pleasure,” he chirped.

“I have heard  _ so _ much about you,” Sophie said. “Nic texted me on the first day of the semester saying there was a super cute guy sitting next to her.”

Malcolm glanced at Nicole, who flushed and sipped her beer. “Nicole told me you took a gap year,” he said.

Sophie launched into a speech about her travels - she had gone to Australia and Thailand and Vietnam before spending six months in Argentina and finally working her way back up to Mexico. She told stories of her time on beaches, the locals that she had met and the foods that she had tried. She talked about the fresh mangoes and drinking straight out of a coconut with her feet in the sand of the beach.

Malcolm understood now what Nicole meant about Sophie being overwhelming and he tried to squeeze her hand to convey his new understanding. 

“And now look at you, a degree in math from Harvard,” Nicole said once Sophie took a breath between stories.

“Yeah!” Sophie grinned. 

Malcolm was nearly done with his beer and he thought about venturing back inside to fetch another.

“Oh, I just remembered another thing Nic texted me about you!” Sophie said. Her words were half-slurred. “You’re the son of the Surgeon!”

His world shifted violently, his vision tilting. “Wh-what?” He asked, looking at Nicole.

“Malcolm, I’m…” she started.

“Is it true?” Sophie asked. 

He pulled his hand away so she wouldn’t feel it shaking. “Yeah,” he bit out. “It’s true. I’m Martin Whitly’s son.”

His voice was too loud. One of the smokers, in a polo, turned and looked at him. “You’re Martin Whitly’s son?”

He was cornered and he fled into the house, the people inside unaware of what had just happened outside. He kept imagining someone approaching him, telling him that their mother or aunt or loved one was one of the Surgeon’s victims, asking him to atone for his father’s crimes.

He burst through the front door, vaguely aware that Nicole was shouting his name somewhere behind him, but everything sounded a million miles away. His hands were shaking and his breathing came in ragged gasps.

“Babe…” Nicole said, touching his back gently.

Malcolm flinched away. “You told her?” It came out angrier than he was expecting. 

“It was before I knew what a big deal it was,” she said, earnest and warm. “I - I thought it was cool. I’m sorry.”

“You thought it was  _ cool _ ?” He asked. “It’s - it’s not cool. Having a serial killer for a father? It fucking sucks.”

He knew he was being accusatory. He knew he was being unreasonable. He knew he should go home and calm down before he tried having this conversation.

“Malcolm, I’m sorry,” Nicole said. “Back then, I didn’t know.”

He took a breath. “I have to go,” he mumbled.

He stormed back home, all the way across campus, and he took the stairs up to his floor. His hands shook and it was hard to find the right key on his keychain, even harder to fit it into the lock. He locked the door behind him and crumpled to the floor, shaking and pulling his knees to his chest.

Logically, he knew that it wasn’t Nicole’s fault. It wasn’t Sophie’s, either - she didn’t know about his trauma and she was drunk. The only person he could blame was his father. He could only blame his name.

Taking a deep breath, Malcolm pulled himself to his desk chair. He grabbed a notebook and started scribbling down surname ideas. He would break the link between himself and the Surgeon. People would no longer be able to guess his relationship to Martin Whitly. It would be up to him to disclose.

He glared down at the list when he was done, his hand shaking as he let his pen fall out of his hand. He didn’t particularly like any of them. Mother’s maiden name was fairly high on the list, but it was still linked to the Surgeon, to New York, and to aristocracy. And it was too alliterative.

Next to him on his desk was his final paper for his criminology class. He had gotten an A- on it and Malcolm looked at the note on the front.

_ Malcolm - you’re a bright student! Thanks for being in my class! _

And Gil’s voice echoed in his head.  _ “You’re bright, kid. You’ll do great at Harvard.” _

Bright. And isn’t that what he needed? To be out of the darkness? 

He took his pen and scribbled it down at the end of the page. Malcolm Bright. 

Malcolm saw Nicole briefly the next morning. Her hair was wild and she had makeup smudged around her eyes and her bags were all packed.

“I’m sorry about last night,” he said, sitting next to her. Her bed was stripped down to the vinyl mattress.

Nicole took his hand and squeezed. “It’s okay. I’m sorry about Sophie. I should have told her that it was a touchy subject.”

His lips twitched towards a smile. She leaned against him in her hoodie and her soft, cotton shorts. He wrapped his arms around her, reminding himself that he was lucky she understood. 

“You have to go, don’t you?” She murmured into his chest.

“Yeah.”

“Text me,” she said, kissing his cheek and pulling away.

“We’ll see each other over summer. Promise.”

He left Harvard behind for the summer. If he were a normal kid, he would get an internship or a job to pass the time between semesters. Mother would scoff at the idea of him working. If he were a normal rich kid, he would take a yacht out onto the Atlantic and get so drunk he forgot his own name.

Immediately out of the airport, in Adolfo’s SUV, he made a quick stop to pick up the documents he would need to file for a legal name change. The clerk warned him of the cost, but Malcolm didn’t care. He just needed to be able to smuggle the papers in with his schoolwork, lest Mother see them and nix the idea of changing his name.

He knew what she would say. He shouldn’t be ashamed of who he was. He should work his ass off to reassociate the Whitly name with forces of good. Though, her idea of forces of good involved more charity work while Malcolm’s involved law enforcement. She called his idea of joining the FBI “overcompensating”.

Mother liked to make a big deal of his coming home and Ainsley complained that he was done school in April and she still had another month to go. Malcolm mostly pushed food around his plate, the memory of the crappy beer turning him off food completely. 

After dinner, Malcolm retreated to his room and pulled the name change forms out of his bag. It was surreal to think that he could sever the connection between him and his father.

Ainsley propped herself against the doorway. “What are those?”

He slapped his hand over the forms. “Nothing.”

She sat down on his bed, smirking. “Then why are you hiding them?”

Malcolm turned to her and sighed. “You can’t tell Mom.”

“God, you have so many secrets lately,” Ainsley said. “At least you finally told her about your girlfriend. Wait, did you break up with her?”

“Ains…”

“Right, sorry,” she said. “The forms. I won’t tell her.”

Malcolm ran a hand through his hair. He focused on the impressionist painting of a bird Mom had chosen for his room. “I’m changing my name.” It felt ridiculous to say it out loud and he thought that he should probably talk to Gabrielle before filing the forms.

Ainsley made a face. “To  _ what _ ?”

“Nothing ridiculous,” he said. “Just my last name.”

Ainsley pressed her lips together and nodded. “To get away from Dad,” she mumbled.

“Exactly,” Malcolm said.

She hardly remembered their father. She couldn’t recall the night of his arrest with much detail, but she had noticed when her big brother changed, stopped speaking and started screaming through the night. She hadn’t seen him for ten years. She did not have baggage, nor the grossly toxic relationship that Malcolm had with their father.

“I know it sounds bad, but I…”

“No,” she said. “I get it. I can handle people asking if I’m related to him. You can’t.”

He tightened his hand into a fist and nodded. 

“So,” Ainsley said, smiling. “What will the new name be?”

“Bright,” he said, testing it in his mouth. 

She hummed, sat back on his bed and nodded. “Malcolm Bright,” she said. “I like it. Are you going to tell Mom?”

Malcolm looked down at the hardwood floor. Even after over a hundred years, they looked as though they’d been installed yesterday. “I have to publish it in a local newspaper to inform anyone who might… need to know,” he said. “I’m hoping that Mom’s disdain of local newspaper means that she… doesn’t see it…”

Ainsley snorted. “You’re not going to tell your own mother that you changed your name?” 

He shrugged. “She would try to dissuade me,” he said.

“She’ll be pissed if she reads it in the paper and doesn’t hear it from you,” she said.

Malcolm knew she was right. He looked at his hands in his lap.

Ainsley stood and squeezed his shoulder. “Good to have you home,” she said, closing the door on her way out.

The only sound in the room was the ticking of the clock on the wall. Counting down the minutes until this session of therapy was over. 

Malcolm had recounted his last day at Harvard for Gabrielle, the events of the party, complete with his meltdown. They had discussed it and dissected it and they had left it in the past. 

“I’m changing my name,” Malcolm said, breaking the silence.

Gabrielle sat back scribbled a quick note on her notepad. 

“Legally,” he clarified, avoiding her gaze.

“What are you changing it to?” She asked in her measured therapist voice.

“Bright,” he said. “Instead of… his name.”

“I think that’s a great idea.”

Malcolm lifted his head. He had expected some pushback from her, examining the potential consequences. He let himself smile.

He met Gil after therapy for coffee, though it ruined his plans for sucking on his lollipop directly after his appointment. He stole a sucker for Gil - blue raspberry - and one for Ainsley - watermelon. 

“Almost done your degree now, aren’t you?” Gil asked, unpeeling the wrapper on his sucker. 

Malcolm nodded. “Another year left,” he said. He liked to blame Gil for his obsession with candy; some days, Red Vines were all he could stomach.

“Thinking about what you’ll do after?”

“I’ve given it some thought,” he said with a shrug. There was only one path that he could think of: law enforcement.

“NYPD is always looking for someone smart,” Gil suggested.

Malcolm knew that it would be a good fit - he would have Gil on his side - but people there were too familiar with The Surgeon. No matter a name change, someone would recognize him. And, he would have to start at the bottom and work his way up. He would have to start on the streets in a uniform arresting people for petty theft and drug possession. 

“I was thinking FBI,” Malcolm said, more to his coffee than to Gil.

Gil raised his eyebrows. He snorted. “Their psych evaluations are nuts and I mean…”

Malcolm sighed and looked at the ceiling. A fan spun sedately. “My father is a serial killer,” he mumbled. 

“Exactly,” Gil said. “I’m not saying that it was your fault, but the FBI might not be so understanding.”

“It shouldn’t preclude me from law enforcement,” he said.

“I agree.”

Malcolm looked at him and sipped his coffee. 

“What?” Gil laughed. “You’re a smart kid. Talented, bright. You always have been. But there are people who won’t see past your dad.”

“But you would,” Malcolm said.

“I would,” Gil said earnestly. 

“So you’re encouraging nepotism,” Malcolm teased, setting his coffee cup on the table.

Gil laughed. “Let’s get you home, kid.”

Malcolm never felt particularly attached to his birthday. It was in mid-July, when the weather started to get hot, and involved a lot of beach trips and ice cream when he was a kid. He always thought of King Edward VII who wanted a parade for his birthday, but was born in November, so he held a parade in June and celebrated then. Malcolm thought about just celebrating his birthday in November, when it was cold and he didn’t have to be stuck at home.

Mother hinted towards a surprise for his birthday - knowing full well that he hated surprises and they just made him anxious. He desperately hoped that she did not prepare anything with his father (though that was out of the question because she hated the man) or that she wasn’t planning on attempting to drag him to the beach like when he was younger. Those hot days on the beach, naming all the different fish with Dad, belonged to the past.

Nicole hadn’t been returning his texts over the past few days, giving quick answers and claiming she was swamped at her internship. He worried about it and he knew it would come up in therapy next week when Gabrielle was back from vacation. 

In the dark, Malcolm watched the clock switch over to midnight and he sighed. It was officially his birthday. He wasn’t born until six in the morning, but the day had come and he was finally twenty-one. Mother would fuss about his first legal drink and tease that he had kept her up all night the day he was born. 

And here he was, eleven years after his father’s arrest, laying in bed restrained and contemplating all the ways he was a terrible boyfriend. 

Malcolm managed to doze for a few hours. The restlessness of summer, the endless days, all marked by a general malaise that kept him confined home, made it even harder to sleep. Not to mention that the house became stifling in the summer heat.

He would get through the day just like any other. He would get up and let Mother overwhelm him with physical affection, all the lipstick kisses and perfumed hugs. Ainsley would hug him once and wish him a happy birthday and pointedly not go out with her friends or tease him. And then he would blow out the candles on his birthday cake - coconut and vanilla bean - and wish that the past ten years had all been a bad dream.

He gave up at eight. He had spent the last hour laying there with his eyes closed and he finally decided that it wasn’t worth it. The sun was streaming in and the room was growing stuffy. He undid his restraints and stood, stretching in the patch of sunlight. There was no chance that Mother was already awake and he thought about having the house all to himself for once.

He took a quick shower and then got dressed for the morning. Mother would certainly make him get changed later, wear something more celebratory, but for now he could relax. He nearly made it to the top of the stairs when the front door opened and closed in quick succession.

It was probably just Louisa or Martina, come a bit early. Malcolm still paused at the top of the stairs, one hand on the banister, ready to flee or bounce down the stairs.

Mother’s voice carried up the stairs. “He should be awake soon,” she said in her guest-voice.

Malcolm retreated a step, out of her sight line if she peered up the stairs. 

“Thank you so much, Mrs. Whitly.”

He snorted at the sound of her voice. Of course Mother’s surprise involved Nicole, and of course it involved bringing Nicole home. She had latched onto the very idea of Malcolm having a girlfriend, something she described as  _ normal _ , and whenever he did anything vaguely resembling  _ normal _ , Mother celebrated.

He stepped off the stairs and slunk back to his room. His hair was still wet from the shower and he thought about changing into something a little nicer now that he knew Nicole was here. And,  _ God _ , she had just met his mother on her own, potentially spent a significant chunk of time with her.

Thoughts of potential embarrassing conversations pushed aside, Malcolm redressed himself and attempted to make it seem like he wasn’t trying too hard. Mother would see right through it and she would notice the dark circles under his eyes and the way he pushed his hair out of his face. She would scold him later, no doubt.

Taking a deep breath and readying himself to feel excited and surprised, Malcolm exited his room again. He made his way down the stairs to the kitchen, where Mother stood, alone, with three cups of coffee.

“I thought I heard you moving around upstairs,” she said, pushing a cup towards him.

Malcolm took a sip and glanced around the room. Mother came around the counter and kissed him on the cheek.

“Happy birthday, my love,” she said. She brushed at his hair and gripped him in that perfectly maternal way that bordered on too-hard but radiated nothing but love and protection.

“Thank you,” he mumbled.

She returned to her own cup of coffee and Malcolm heard the downstairs bathroom door creak open. Nicole stepped into the room, burst into a grin at the sight of Malcolm and bounced over to wrap her arms around him. She smelled of floral perfume - rose heavy.

“And here is your surprise,” Mother said, beaming as Malcolm pulled her in and kissed her.

Nicole smiled. “Happy birthday,” she said.

Malcolm laughed. It felt good to have her in his arms, even if he had been worrying he was a terrible boyfriend all night. “Thank you.”

“I have been planning this for months,” Mother bragged.

“That’s why I haven’t returned your texts,” Nicole said, “because I couldn’t say anything other than how excited I was to see you.”

Malcolm smiled. “How’d you get the time off work?”

“Please, it’s Friday,” Nicole laughed. “I told them I wasn’t going to be in and all the senior members shrugged and said they wouldn’t be in either.”

“Perfect,” he grinned.

Mother cleared her throat. “Nicole, dear, you can have the guest room downstairs while you’re here. Louisa is just setting it up.”

Rather than face the knowing looks from his mother, Malcolm fled the kitchen with Nicole and settled with her in the study. His bedroom seemed too intimate and the entire thought of having sex on his childhood bed while his mother was ghosting around the house was too much to stand.

“I’m sorry about her,” Malcolm cringed as they settled together on the couch.

Nicole laughed. “She’s… a lot. But she’s cool, she’s fine,” she said, wrapping her hand in his. 

“She is anything but cool and fine,” he said. 

“Come on, she bought me a first-class plane ticket to surprise you for your birthday,” Nicole said. 

“Only because she wants to meet you,” Malcolm said.

Nicole smiled. “My parents are dying to meet you,” she hummed. “Come tear it up in Snoozeville, Indiana for a couple of days. Though… our house is nowhere near as gorgeous as yours.”

She looked around the room at all the old paintings and the never-ending stacks of books, the busts and the rich Persian rugs. Opulent, ostentatious, lavish. Ridiculous. He was embarrassed by it.

“Snoozeville?” Malcolm asked.

“Most people call it Lafayette,” she said.

All in all, it was a good birthday. They went to a new natural history museum, spending a few hours hand-in-hand staring at all of the displays. They returned home for dinner and spent the evening together, just chatting away together. Malcolm was delighted that Mother and Ainsley both seemed to really like Nicole.

At night, Mother again made a pointed jab at Nicole sleeping in the guest room. Malcolm knew her implications at them having sex under her roof were a good cover for his night terrors, for the restraints and the mouth guard. He didn’t argue the point. He just kissed Nicole goodnight and told her to come get him if she needed anything, though she knew where the bathroom was and where the kitchen was.

He slept better that night without the weight of a surprise hanging over his shoulders and it could also have something to do with the glass of wine Mother served at dinner.

They only had three days together, Malcolm and Nicole. On Saturday, she came into his room, though he invited her and tucked away the restraints in expectation of her visit. 

He sat in his desk chair, fiddling with a pen between his fingers to keep his hands busy. Nicole sat on his bed, legs crossed under herself, and looked at Malcolm’s high school graduation portrait. She had already teased him for how short his hair was in the photo.

“Of course you went to private school,” she said. “Let me guess… Valedictorian?”

“No, not quite,” Malcolm chuckled. “Though, I think I made the top ten.”

“Where’s your yearbook? I want to see the quote you chose,” Nicole said, standing and scanning his bookshelf. 

“Well, it wasn’t Dickens,” Malcolm chuckled.

“No  _ best of times, worst of times _ ? What quote did Malcolm Whitly go with?” She asked, pulling out his well-worn copy of  _ The Count of Monte Cristo _ and flipping through the pages.

Malcolm clenched his hand. “I… I’m changing my name,” he said. He had a plan to see a notary public next week, file the papers, make it official.

Nicole dropped the book back on his bookshelf. Malcolm unclenched his hand. “What?” She asked.

“I don’t want everyone to associate me with Dr. Whitly,” Malcolm said, staring at his lap. 

“Oh,” she said, going over and perching back on his bed. “That… that makes sense.”

Nicole took his hand and squeezed. He squeezed back. 

“What will it be, then? Are you going to take your mother’s maiden name?”

Malcolm chuckled. “God, no,” he said. “Malcolm Milton sounds  _ terrible _ .”

Nicole laughed. Malcolm did not want to bring up the fact that  _ she  _ was the one who made him think of this, but he thought it might be good to thank her for the idea.

“Bright,” he said. “Malcolm Bright.”

She grinned. “That’s cute.”

That night, Malcolm sat up with a book at his desk, long after Mother’s bedroom door had closed. Just after one, there was a quiet, tentative knock on his door.

“Come in,” he said, closing the book.

Nicole opened the door and shut it behind herself. She was in her soft cotton shorts again, her hair pulled up into a bun on top of her head. She had removed her makeup, her brown skin glowing in the lamplight.

“Hey,” he said. “You okay?”

She nodded. “I wanted to come see you,” she said.

Malcolm reached for her and she stepped over, sitting in his lap. She kissed him deeply, and her intent was clear. 

It was better than having sex in their dorm rooms, much more comfortable, and he forgot all his previous qualms of being a terrible boyfriend. They curled up together in his bed afterwards, enveloped in the dark. Nicole fell asleep against him, but Malcolm, an arm wrapped around her waist and the other underneath the pillow, thought he would employ his usual technique and stay up all night. He had no need for restraints if he was not asleep.

He was tired, though, after a terrible sleep the other night, and his eyes betrayed him by shutting. He would just rest his eyes. He would pinch himself and wake right back up.

He was running through the forest, ten years old, holding a switchblade in his left hand. The trees encroached upon him, seemed to close in, and he was panting but he had to keep running. There was danger behind him.

He fell into a thorn bush and the thorns cut into his arm. Falling was bad - the danger would catch him and he would surely die. Someone climbed on top of him, straddled him, and he pushed, fought back. Someone was calling his name. 

Nicole slapped him across the cheek and he woke up. She straddled him, still naked, and she was panting and red in the face - crying.

“What the fuck was that?” She asked.

He looked at his arm, nail-shaped spots of blood appearing. 

“You nearly killed me!” Nicole shrieked.

She climbed off of him and picked her clothes up off his floor. He sat up, his hands shaking.

“Nicole, I’m sorry, I can explain,” he said.

“Explain  _ what _ ?” She demanded. “Is - is this your whole plan? Seduce some girl, bring her home, choke her to death in bed?”

Malcolm stood. He felt ridiculous, standing in front of her naked. “I was having a nightmare,” he said, trying to keep his voice even. It wasn’t working. 

“We’ve slept together before, Malcolm,” she said. She had tears falling down her face. “This has never happened before.”

“I never slept those times,” he said. “Because I sleep in restraints.”

Nicole pawed at her face and Malcolm went to the head of his bed, pulled on the end of the restraint until the cuff came up. 

“See?” He said, shaking it. 

“You were going to  _ kill me _ ,” she said, her voice hoarse with emotion.

“Nicole, I’m sorry,” he said. “I never meant to fall asleep, but -”  _ we had sex, and this is the room where I’m safest, and I trust you _ .

“Go to hell,” she spat, recoiling as he reached out to her. She fled, stormed down the stairs, and Malcolm stumbled into a pair of sweatpants before he followed

“Nicole!” 

He didn’t care if he woke Mother or Ainsley. He followed her downstairs to the guest room, where she was getting changed and throwing her things into her suitcase.

“Leave me alone,” she hissed.

“I’m sorry,” he said. The words were inadequate but he didn’t know what else to say.

“You know what? I don’t think you are,” Nicole said, turning to him in just her bra and her shorts. “I think you planned all of this. I think you’re sorry you got caught.’

“I was  _ asleep _ !” Malcolm said. Gone was the gentle tone and the compassion. Why didn’t she believe him?

“What’s your grand plan? Continue your father’s legacy?”

His blood ran cold. He clenched his jaw, shut his eyes, and tried to count to five, but her words were echoing in his head too loud for him to hear himself.

“I should have known better,” Nicole spat. She shut her suitcase and picked up her cell phone. “And it sucks because I really love you.”

Malcolm opened his eyes, watched her storm into the hall and dial the number for a cab. Neither of them had said it before now and his heart sputtered -  _ I love you, too _ . She walked into the hall, out the front door, and slammed it shut behind her. He flinched.

He shut off the light in the guest room. Louisa would clean it tomorrow, change the sheets and vacuum the floor, and erase any trace of her in the house. He hardly felt his feet hitting the floor as he walked into the hall. Part of him thought about following Nicole outside, orchestrating some romantic scene, or at the very least telling her she was welcome to sit inside while she waited for her cab.

But he stopped by the stairs. She was gone. 

He should have known better. He shouldn’t have let himself fall asleep. He shouldn’t have let Mother bring her here. He shouldn’t have dated her at all.

“Malcolm?”

He looked up. Mother stood at the top of the stairs in her robe, wrapped tightly around herself. She padded down the stairs carefully and took his left arm, gasping quietly.

“You’re bleeding,” she said. “What happened?”

Instead of responding, Malcolm began to cry, and he let himself fold into her like a child.

“You’re heartbroken.”

Malcolm bit his cheek and looked away into the corner of the cell. 

“You know, I had the same look on my face when your mother served me with divorce papers,” Martin Whitly said.

It was stupid to come here, especially right after filing his name change documents. It was stupid to come here at all, but he worried that if he didn’t, he would go back to being eleven and suicidal.

“Tell me what’s going on, Malcolm.”

He felt childish sitting on the floor in the corner of the cell, Martin sitting on his bed, chained to it. His legs were going numb from sitting on the hard concrete and the bars behind him dug into his back. 

“She broke up with me,” he admitted, staring at his shoes.

Martin winced. “Ooh, right around your birthday,” he said. “That’s cruel.”

Malcolm shook his head. He measured out his words, wondered if it would be stupid to tell him  _ why _ and he ultimately decided upon not mentioning his nightmares. “It wasn’t working.”

“Still, it’s not very nice.”

He bit back a retort that murder wasn’t very nice, either. He leaned against the bars of the cell. He would feel it tonight when he attempted to sleep.

“Malcolm?”

He looked up. Martin had that warm look on his face, a gentle smile.

“Happy birthday, son.”

He would forever be grateful for the shackles that impeded Martin from touching him and the rules stating that he could not give anything to Malcolm. What would he give him, anyway, as a gift? He could not remember the various knick-knacks his father had given to him on his birthday.

He made it out of the cell with another call to forget the girl who broke his heart.

Gabrielle said it was normal to feel sad. She said that he could not control the narratives that other people created for him and he did not have to prove anything to Nicole. Malcolm had panicked, wondered if she would call the police on him for attempted murder but police had yet to knock on the door.

He still found himself checking his phone, feeling phantom buzzes in his pocket, only to find that he had no new messages. He considered sending her a text, another apology, but he decided against it. Did she need an apology other than the first class plane tickets? Ainsley told him to delete her number.

Malcolm was pulled from his weeks-long reverie by the news that his name change had been approved. Malcolm Whitly was good as dead. He had to inform Harvard, the bank, and, worst of all, his mother.

“You cannot run from these problems, Malcolm,” she said, staring at her decanter of whisky.

Malcolm bit back a retort as she poured herself a glass and took a sip. “You can’t drink your way out of them, either.”

Mother turned to him, her eyes fiery. “Don’t,” she growled.

He looked away. At the very least, Mother had not threatened to call her lawyer and fight for a reversal of the decision. 

“You would need to move to rural India before you completely escaped him,” Mother said. “And even then, he would still be in your head.”

“Changing my name was my choice,” Malcolm argued. “I’m an adult.”

Mother cocked her head, held her glass with her perfectly manicured hand. “Does he know?”

“No,” he said. He intended to keep it that way. Though Dr. Whitly may have control over his visitor’s list, he did not have access to the names on it and he did not have access to the newspaper in which he had published the change. 

“Good,” she said. 

Her tone was inscrutable. She left the room, her high heels clacking on the floor.

“Bright.”

It took him a long time to get used to the name. He had to learn to respond when he was called on at the top of roll call lists, that it was not another student named Malcolm. It was easier at Quantico, where no one knew him as a Whitly and he could introduce himself as Bright as though he’d been born into the name.

Sometimes, it still sounded foreign.

Malcolm had gone twelve years with his new name. Mother still hated it - referred to it as a  _ ridiculous alias _ \- and his father still didn’t know about the change. Gil had taken to it first, used it as often as he could to drill it into his head, and he had not once slipped up. 

“ _ Bright _ .”

Malcolm looked up. Dani sat at his side, holding a book in her lap. There was a new bag on the bed by his feet - his clothes that he’d asked for.

“Is that Harry Potter?” He asked.

Dani looked down at the book in her hands - the first one. “Your sister left it here,” she said.

He could vaguely recall Ainsley sitting next to him, telling him everything there was to know about Mr. and Mrs. Dursley while he was asleep. He looked down at his hand, his thumb encased in a cast and immobilized. It ached if he focused on it for too long.

“You… probably can’t hold it,” Dani mumbled.

Malcolm blinked. “You don’t have to sit here,” he said after a minute.

Dani frowned. “Isn’t that what friends are for?” She asked. 

“Friends,” Malcolm echoed.

“Yeah,” she said, a smile playing at her lips. “And I’m driving you home. Gil’s orders.”

He chuckled and it made his stab wound smart. 

“I tried to argue that you could drive yourself home,” Dani said. “But Gil wouldn’t have it.”

“I don’t have a driver’s license,” Malcolm said.

Dani paused and rolled her eyes. “Of course you don’t.”

Malcolm reached with his good hand, grazing over the bandage that covered his stitches. Mother had threatened to sue the entire hospital if they let Malcolm discharge himself against medical advice and he relented. John Watkins was in custody and he had to focus on healing. Now, hopefully, after two weeks in the hospital, he could return home, to normalcy.

Dani reached over, taking his good hand and squeezing. Her hands were warm. “I’m glad you’re okay, Bright.”

She sounded earnest and Malcolm was inclined to believe her.


End file.
